Surrender

As it turned out, Elle was not a difficult child to please. After waking up in the console room, she had a bout of shyness during which she wouldn't look at me, wouldn't speak to me except to nod or shake her head, and wouldn't let me touch her. I reckoned she'd been so upset when she first arrived that she was willing to trust anyone. Now that she was rested, she was more herself, perhaps a bit more rational, and she was suspicious again. As she should be, I thought.

It was okay. I knew she'd come around if I left her alone for a bit, which I did. I'd found some non-threatening things to put into a sandwich and left it near her, and a couple of electronic games. Sure enough, eventually, I heard the beeping of one of the games, and she ate part of the sandwich. After a while, she began to wander around the console and examine things. I said nothing, except to ask her not to touch anything, and she didn't, but her face never lost that childish wonder. When she'd made it all the way round the controls, she stopped at my side. She reached up fingered the hem of my jacket (I'd changed back into a fresh suit by then), as though she was feeling it for quality assurance. I wondered if she'd never seen polyester before. Well, I couldn't blame her – it was a strange substance.

She looked up at me, finally making eye contact, and smiled. "Stripes!" she said.

While she'd been sleeping and eating and exploring, I'd set a course for her home galaxy and began trying to get in touch with some of the planets, to see if there was an alert out for a lost child. It was rather a long-shot, because Elle was wearing what appeared to be a fully-equipped space travel suit (though I couldn't be sure of that as long as she was still wearing it) and an academy-issue helmet. She wasn't a kid who had just wandered onto a spacecraft and accidentally blasted off – an adult had to have prepared her for it, and then put her in that pod. Said adult was not likely to report her missing.

So I relied upon Elle to tell me.

Over the next few hours, we played "games," mostly designed to get her to tell me stuff. Mostly, it worked. It took a long while because she was more interested in asking questions than answering them (as children tend to be), but eventually we sussed it out. I think that she wound up learning a lot more about me and the TARDIS than I learned about her, but I had to get her home somehow. I was aware that if she'd been a few years older, there's no way in hell I would have given her so much information, but being five has its advantages.

She was from Churteen, a relatively small planet on one of the inner rings of the Lirswil galaxy. Churteen had a reputation for being incongruously primitive, probably because it was not located on the outskirts of the system where travel is easier. She didn't know her father, but her mother's name was Tricity, and she'd got into space because her mum had woken her in the night, told her they were playing a game, rushed her into a space suit and put her in the flying pod which eventually malfunctioned and nearly exploded with her in it. Obviously, she had no idea the real reason for her mother's actions, but I resolved to find out.

When we landed on Churteen, it was night. She and I went into one of the deeper, backwater wardrobe rooms and dug and dug until we found clothes small enough for her to wear. They were boys' clothes from planet Earth, circa 1950, but she didn't seem to care. She was just happy not to have to wear the stiff, hot space suit. From then on, she ran around in brown draw-string trousers and a blue plaid "farm boy" shirt, and tiny work boots. She put her own hair in a knot somehow (I was impressed), and we walked out of the TARDIS onto a sandy surface.

Oh, the sand! The sand was ankle-deep to me, and that made it difficult to walk. I was quite glad that I was six feet tall and not three feet, but Elle didn't seem to mind one bit, even though she had to work twice as hard as me in order to get anywhere. I held her hand and she frequently tripped and relied on me to keep her upright, but she didn't want to be carried.

From the looks of things, we were in a desert. There were ten or twelve huts around us, made from reddish-brown twigs and tied together tightly with an organic string. Presiding over the huts was a larger building, also made of the same twigs, but regal-looking, like a temple. Everywhere, there were fire torches sticking up out of the ground to light the way.

"This is the Surrender Gallery," Elle chirped as we looked about. Something about her words sent a chill up my spine.

"What's the Surrender Gallery?" I asked. "What happens here?"

She shrugged and said, "Mm-mm-mm," to the tune of I don't know, but pointedly did not make eye contact with me.

I believed that she had some idea of what happens here, and that it was not good.

"How do you know this place?" I asked.

"Mummy brought us here, me and Aldo."

"Aldo?"

"My brother."

"When was that?"

She stopped walking and closed her eyes tightly. "Mmmm," she said, thinking. "Yesterday."

"Yesterday? Are you sure?"

"We came here, then we went home, and I went to sleep. Then mummy woke me up and said to put on to put on my travelling suit…"

"So she brought you and Aldo here, and immediately sent you away from your home planet?"

"Mm-hm."

"Aldo too? Did she send him away?"

She shook her head.

"Where's Aldo now?"

She shrugged and sang the tune of I don't know once again, and seemed to lose her concentration on walking. I absently set her upright again.

"Did he come home with you after you came here?"

She repeated her non-answer.

"Blimey," I muttered, running my hand through my hair. "What the hell is this?"

"Good evening, sir," a voice said. A woman was approaching from my left, and I turned with a start. "Welcome to the Surrender Gallery – thank you for answering the call. You are a good citizen."

"Erm, thanks," I said.

"I am Kali," she informed me with a beatific smile. She was a tall woman, about as tall as me, as a matter of fact. Though it was hard to tell in the sand. She had striking good looks that could only be described as Nubian; rounded, shrouded eyes, sculpted lips and skin like chocolate silk that seemed to glow in the firelight. The way I focused on her couloring, I was reminded of my initial reaction to Martha, though this Kali was a much deeper shade of brown. Her hair was cropped very close to her head, and she wore an orange cotton gown which exposed her shoulders and arms. Her voice was deep and entrancing, womanly, very pleasant to my ears.

But I didn't trust her. Silly old me, being all cautious and stuff.

"And you are?" she asked.

"John Smith," I said. "This is Elle."

"Come," she said, taking my arm, beginning to walk. "We are a bit crowded tonight, but we will be able to accommodate you, of course, your having come all this way."

I didn't say anything, I simply went with her and picked up Elle, whether she liked it or not.

We reached one of the huts, and Kali made a gesture for me to wait. She stuck her head through a thick curtain of long, dried grass and said a few words. Then she motioned for us to go inside. "This is where you will prepare, and await your cue. Gods be with you," she said, just before walking away.

I ducked inside, and found a woman, a man and a little boy about Elle's age. The mother was kneeling before the boy, fussing over his hair, straightening out his garments, sniffling a bit. The boy looked dumbstruck, and the father was pacing about, until we came in.

"Hello," said the man. He seemed forlorn and nervous.

"Hi," I responded, putting Elle down. But she did not move to explore nor to play with the boy. She stayed at my side, clinging to the hem of my jacket. Whatever had happened here before had mightily scared her.

"I'm Parken, this is my wife Lina, our son Jurdon," the man said.

"I'm John Smith, this is Elle," I said. I wasn't sure how to act. A smile didn't seem appropriate, a furrowed brow would reveal too quickly how mistrustful I was, and I wasn't really capable of a neutral expression at the moment. I settled on curling my lips between my teeth and biting down. I waited for someone to tell me what the hell we were doing there, but people seemed to assume I knew.

The man approached me. He whispered, "Her mother isn't around, I see? Well, it's all right. They'll take care of you in the temple. A widower friend of mine told me all about it – they help you… cope, even if you aren't able to have more children."

"Cope?" I couldn't help furrowing my brow. I was extremely uncomfortable here, and didn't like anyone or anything I'd met so far.

Suddenly, a noise came from outside the hut. It was the sound of rustling grass, and then of a child crying. Parken and his family all looked at each other, and he said, "It's starting."

I looked outside through the grass curtain, and saw two large men holding a child by the wrists and leading him toward the temple as he wailed. The parents followed behind, comforting one another, and another pair of large men followed them, clearly to keep them from snatching their son and taking off.

Out of nowhere, four large men appeared in front of me. "Move aside," one of them demanded. I stepped back inside the hut, out of his way, and looked at the family of three, now clearly terrified. The mother had her forehead pressed against the boy's, and she was weeping copiously.

"Surrender bay number nine, Jurdon, son of Parken and Lina, this is your cue," the same man said from outside. He did not come in, but expected the family to come out. Jurdon went first, and then his devastated parents. I stuck my head out and watched them go, and the scene was very much the same as the one I had seen a minute before. The area was teeming with groups of guards, but they were all militaristic and occupied, and I thought it was unlikely that they were paying attention to us.

I searched through my pockets and gave Elle the TARDIS key, hanging at the end of a string. "Elle, do you know how to unlock a door using a key?"

She took the key in her cupped hands and nodded uncertainly.

"Run back to the blue box," I told her. "Lock the door when you get inside, and do not come out or open the door for anyone or anything, except for me. Do you understand?"

She looked at me worriedly, her bottom lip protruding and shaking. Her eyes were as wide as saucers and quickly filling with tears. I wanted to melt into a puddle right there. "But I want to stay with you," she begged.

"It's too dangerous," I said. "I don't know where all those kids are going, so it's better if you just stay in the blue box, okay?"

She started to cry, but she nodded. I hugged her and told her she was very brave, and then we went outside the hut. "Run," I whispered. "As fast as you can!"

I could see the TARDIS from where I was standing, in the distance. I watched her go – she fell three times, but she was surprisingly fast. Soon enough, she was there, struggling with the lock, but she got in and shut the door. I sighed heavily. True, the TARDIS was a poor babysitter, but it had to be better than whatever was happening here. I hoped against hope that she was better at staying put than most of the people whom I told to stay inside the TARDIS and not come out.

I saw some of the large men coming back. They were far away, but I had a feeling they were coming for us. I ducked round the other side of the hut, fairly certain that they hadn't seen me.

"Surrender bay number nine, Elle, daughter of John Smith, this is your cue!" I heard. I stayed deadly still. He repeated himself, this time louder. When nothing happened, he instructed his goons, "Go in after them."

As they rustled around inside the hut, finding nothing, I ran. I tripped through the sand, trying to sprint in the direction they seemed to be taking the children, toward the temple. I saw a different group of men taking another child round the right side of the large structure, so I went to the left. On the far side of the temple, there were approximately five hundred people gathered, nearly silently, clearly awaiting something. Against the wall of the temple, there was a platform made of rock, and a pedastal on top of that. I did not like the looks of this at all.

I joined the crowd and tried to make myself inconspicuous (which was not easy in a group of people who were all wearing what looked like tan canvas sacks for clothes). In less than a minute, two of the large men appeared upon the platform before the people, each grasping the arm of a dark-haired girl who looked to be about twelve years old. Everyone knelt and seemed to bow their heads so I followed suit. Except for two people.

"Yadro and Milina, parents of Theandra, please come forward," one of the men said. It was a different one than the one whose voice I'd heard before.

The two people still standing came forward before the platform, and knelt on a raised step, slightly higher than the crowd.

"May the gods look upon you in peace on this night," the man said. "As you make to them the sacrifice of your daughter Theandra."

My chest tightened, and both my hearts stopped for a couple of seconds. I had to fight myself very hard in order not to scream out in protest. I had known this was a possibility, but I'd been praying silently that it wasn't the case. I now fully understood what had happened to Aldo, and why Elle's mum had sent her careening off this planet in a faulty space pod.

The girl wept pitifully as the men picked her up and laid her down on the pedastal, then stepped aside. I could hear her sobs, as well as those of her parents, as we all waited.

Suddenly a large flying creature appeared in the sky over the temple. It circled around and landed right on top of the girl. It was more or less humanoid, full-sized, except obviously, it had wings. But something wasn't right about it. Its flight was stilted, not smooth, and the width and shape of its wings did not seem adequate to keep a being that large airborne.

Mercifully, the creature's body covered the girl as it devoured her. Then it stood, faced the crowd, seemed to hiss, then took flight again, disappearing. The hiss it made was the sound of a compression motor powering up to allow the being to fly, though I suppose to the crowd, it sounded sinister or mysterious. When it was gone, I looked at the corpse of the sacrificed girl. It was as grey as clay, and a trickle of blood seeped from her throat.

Of course. I recognised the mark of this creature. I'd met them before - well, met one before. They couldn't fly, but they sure as hell could convince a primitive planet that they were gods, and that they required sacrifice.

I had seen enough.